Not every lifestyle selection can be purchased at Target. That’s the theme of “9 by Design” (11 p.m., Bravo, TV-PG), a new reality series celebrating Bob and Cortney Novogratz, two designers and developers who have become fabulously successful and hip icons while managing to raise six kids and are now expecting their seventh.
The Novogratzes made their name buying shabby buildings in not-yet-fashionable neighborhoods and refurbishing them with their personal style before selling and/or renting them out to much richer clients who wanted to acquire an instant funky chic with turnkey efficiency.
Bob plays the smug, annoying male who fancies himself the Monkees’ Mickey Dolenz as reimagined by Quentin Tarantino. You kinda want somebody to knock his tragically hip hat off his big head. Bob incites food fights with the kids and plays hooky from house-hunting duties, leaving Cortney to play the worried, responsible one. In short, Kate to his Jon.
Bob and Cortney have the grating habit of completing each other’s sentences and treating their family as some kind of brand, or brand extension.
Their business and their brood have been the subject of many articles in glossy fashion magazines. When I asked my wife, a designer familiar with such things, if she wanted to watch their show, she replied, “You mean those horrible people who call their kid ‘Seven’?” Actually, one of their children is named “Five.” But her point stands.